Tips on entering charity awards

Making the transition from ‘charity’ to ‘award-winning charity’ can bring lots of benefits.

 

Entering awards is a good way to recognise the work of people on your staff and in your wider community – volunteers, campaigners, and others who have helped to shape your projects.

 

Awards shortlists and ceremonies are also opportunities to raise your profile with funders, donors, the people you support and even people who might want to work for you in the future.

 

Occasionally you might also benefit from a prize to support the organisation’s development – always a plus!

 

 

Choosing the right awards to enter

 

There are awards for projects, the people delivering them, different sectors and different geographic locations – lots of opportunities to get recognition.

 

Some awards are focused specifically on the charity sector, including the Charity Awards and Third Sector Awards.

 

If there is a campaign that you are particularly proud of, there may be an award in another sector that would be a good fit. For example, The Drum runs awards for the communications industry, including one for campaigns with social purpose.

 

Perhaps there is an awards programme in one of the nations or communities where your work takes place, like the Scottish Charity Awards or the Luton and Bedfordshire Community Awards.

 

There are also awards that help celebrate the work of your team. For example, The Charity Governance Awards showcases the work of trustee boards and Digital Leaders 100 celebrates digital leaders across all sectors, but was won in 2021 by Polly Cook at Parkinson’s for her work on service transformation.

 

Work out which awards you might enter by googling the options and nosing around at the awards other charities have entered. Create a long list to act as a framework for your thinking on who or what at your charity could be eligible for an award.

 

 

Getting a great match

 

Start to narrow down your long list by checking the criteria very carefully.

 

Be certain that the work or person you’re considering for the award is a strong match for the criteria. Entering awards takes time and input from across the organisation and is only worthwhile if the person or project matches the criteria and therefore has a chance at winning.

 

 

Crafting a winning story

 

Your application and the storycraft used to fill it out will have the biggest influence on your chances of success. The story you tell should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. It should explain what the problem was, the work you did to address it, and the impact your work has had. It should also communicate the role of the main characters involved and whether they were community champions or staff members.

 

You will need to draw in all the best stories and statistics about your project or the person you’re nominating to bring the application off the page and into the hearts and imaginations of the judges.

 

For example, Seeability were the overall winners of the Charity Excellence Award at the Charity Awards in 2021. They told the story of their ambitious vision to bring specialist eye care into schools for children with special needs.

 

Launching the project was a calculated risk because they knew that children with learning disabilities were 28 times more likely to have a serious sight problem – and it paid off.

 

The project found that nearly half of the children tested had a sight problem, but 44% had never had an eye test.

 

In Scotland, the SCVO Volunteer of the Year Award 2021 was given to Shawn who explained why he wanted to be a role model for BAME and disadvantaged communities in a variety of ways, including leading a community gardening project to help refugees with their mental health and wellbeing by creating the opportunity for them to spend more time in nature.

 

 

Spending time on writing

 

The British Chambers estimates that, “a good award entry can take 4-6 weeks to put together.”

 

It takes time to gather information and perspectives from the people involved in a project or the people who work with your award nominee. Not to mention the time proofreading, making edits and getting approvals!

 

With so many people involved it may help to plan out a process for copyediting, approvals and final sign off. This can help to avoid making tricky decisions between conflicting pieces of feedback.

 

MOCHA is a great tool for establishing roles on projects. You can use it to identify who the manager, owner, consultants, helpers and approvers are for the award application. With roles clearly defined, feedback, approvals and sign off start to become more straightforward.

 

Entering awards is an investment, but recognising the incredible work of our sector and the people who lead it is ample return, and motivating for all of us.